Airbag and airbag technology have been known and used for decades. These airbag systems are designed such that in the event of an accident or crash, the airbag will inflate and become positioned on the interior of the vehicle. Such positioning of the airbag will prevent the vehicle occupant from harmfully impacting the windshield, steering wheel, dashboard, vehicle door, or other portions of the vehicle interior. Airbags have been credited with saving thousands of lives and are now standard on new motor vehicles.
In order to inflate and deploy the airbag during a crash, an inflator is used. The inflator produces and/or channels a large quantity of inflation gas into the airbag, thereby inflating the airbag and causing the airbag to become positioned in the vehicle interior. The quantity of inflation gas that is used to inflate the airbag may either be stored directly in the inflator or may be produced as a result of a pyrotechnic event.
Since the onset of airbags, there has been a desire to provide an airbag inflator that can adapt to the crash conditions of an accident. The reason for this is obvious in that there are an infinite number of crash scenarios that are possible on the road. Accordingly, by allowing the airbag inflator to vary or adapt to these crash conditions, optimized protection for the vehicle occupant could be achieved. In order to achieve this goal, different types of inflators have been designed including inflators that have two separate discharge abilities—i.e., a “high” output and a “low” output. The high output is used in crashes when the airbag needs to be inflated to a higher pressure. The low output is used in crashes when the airbag needs to be inflated to a lower pressure. However, while these inflators do a high and low output, these inflators do not offer a variety of different outputs that may be adapted to differing crash conditions. Such a device is disclosed herein.